Nicaragua Webinar Series

June 22, 2025: Our Time in Nicaragua: Veterans For Peace Report Back

This webinar features an official Veterans for Peace delegation to Nicaragua.  What experiences & new knowledge can they share about this nation of Reconciliation and National Unity? Speakers: Gerry Condon, VFP national Board Member & past President; Josh Shurley, VFP national Vice President; Michael Kramer, President, Northern New Jersey VFP; Dan Shea, President, Portland, Oregon VFP; Al Glatkowski, At-Large VFP member in Virginia; Chris Smiley, VFP Communications Director, Managua. Co-moderator: Camilo Mejia, Nicaraguan citizen, US veteran, former prisoner of conscience.

May 18, 2025: Nicaraguan programs of maternal & child health: A cross-national comparison

This webinar features special programs in Nicaragua to protect & enhance the health of mothers & their children. Since 2007 Nicaragua has reduced maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, & infant mortality rates by well over 50%. Becca Renk, originally from Idaho, has lived & worked in Nicaragua for 25 years & directs a health clinic in Ciudad Sandino outside of Managua.  Magda Lanuza is program manager of Casa Arlen Siu, a maternal wait home in El Sauce, Department of Leon. Jameela Alexander, active organizer in BAP & AAPRP from Baltimore, Maryland, visited Nicaragua in March with a delegation. She is a worker/doula who previously studied village midwifery in Ecuador. Co-moderator: Natalia Burdynska

May 2023: The View from the Ground:  What We Experienced in Nicaragua in 2018

The four speakers lived through the attempted coup, April – July 2018, and describe how it has affected their current viewpoint and work. Featuring John Perry, Becca Renk, Nils McCune, Coleen Littlejohn.

21 septiembre, 2025: Programas de vivienda destacados en Nicaragua y Venezuela. Descubra cómo Nicaragua y Venezuela están proporcionando viviendas sociales dignas a un gran número de sus ciudadanos a un costo bajo o nulo.‍ ‍Ponentes: Sofia M. Clark, politóloga y exdiplomática, Managua; Eizabeth Santos, de FundaVivienda, con Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela. Copatrocinador principal:  Red de Solidaridad con Venezuela.

April 13, 2025: Building Sustainable Communities:  Insights from Nicaragua

SarahJunkin Woodard shares a slideshow and insights from Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua, describing "the amazing realities developing within Sandinista Nicaragua where both the social and political will are focused on helping the majority of the population, the poorest of the poor."  Sarah represents the work of the Jubilee House Community, a U.S. nonprofit she helped form in 1979.  She has spent the last 31 years in Nicaragua, with the project name Center for Development in Central America.  The JHC-CDCA continues to respond to local needs, helping the poor accomplish what they see as their priorities, particularly in the areas of sustainable economic development, organic agriculture, health care, and education.

September 21, 2025: Remarkable Housing Programs in Nicaragua & Venezuela. Learn how Nicaragua and Venezuela are providing dignified social housing to huge numbers of their citizens at zero or low cost. Speakers: Sofia M. Clark, political scientist, former diplomat, Managua; Elizabeth Santos of FundaVivienda, with Gran Mision Vivienda Venezuela.  Primary co-sponsor: Venezuela Solidarity Network.

July 27, 2025: Revolutionizing Tourism: Nicaragua's Model to Benefit Communities & Travelers

Hear about the development of family- and community-based tourism in Nicaragua, and how it contrasts with other travel of today and of past decades. Becca Renk leads a discussion with recent delegation members Ken Yale, Geraldine Cawthorne, Larry Fisk, and Gayle Nielsen.